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David Lane called the meeting to order at 8:40.

David thanked the outgoing officers and members of the
Policy Council.

Erling Moxnes, Past President

Tim Haslett, VP Chapter Activities

PC Members

Enzo Bivona

Burak Güneralp

Imrana Umar

Lars Weber

David
welcomed the incoming officers and PC members:

David Ford, President Elect

Martin Schaffernicht, VP Chapter Activities

Burcu Tan for a partial term 2011-2012 to fill the
slot vacated by Martin Schaffernicht

PC Members

Allyson Beall

Peter Hovmand

Len Malczynski

Markus Schwaninger

David also thanked and welcomed the officers continued for
another term:

Brad Morrison, Secretary

David Andersen, VP Finance

A
motion to approve the minutes of the 2010 General Business Meeting was made,
seconded, and passed.

David
Lane reported on some electronic votes of the Policy Council. Juergen Stroeheker was appointed to
nominating committee. The Conflict,
Defense and Security SIG was formed.

Officer Reports:

VP of Finance – David Andersen

David explained that SDS is a MA
501c3 corporation and presented a chart showing society finances since
1984. The Society operates with a
contract with the University of Albany for home office services. We first became professionally managed in
1996. Reserves would have allowed us to
stay in existence for about 5 months. By
2001, it was scary to note that reserves were of about 2 years. We do well when conference is attended
well. We are budgeting this year to make
some use of our cash reserves. David explained
the budget that was approved by the PC. Now, we have a column for investments, so that we can disentangle
investments from operating performance. We
will use about $27K of investment income to support operations.

VP of Electronic Presence – Bob Eberlein

Bob is trying to update the website
to use as a contact management system and has had some trouble. Many people have
used the discussion forum. The reviews
from this conference will be posted on the discussion forum. Bob encouraged use of the discussion forum for
questions and discussion. We did have a
Wiki, which has been moribund for several years, so we will take it down. We tried to launch a new forum for
formulation issues on discussion forum. We need a new webmaster, since Jack Pugh has retired.

Chapters should be aware that it is
easy for us to provide support to any chapters or SIGs that want to have a web
presence.

VP of Meetings – Andreas Groessler

This year, 2011, attendance is the second
largest ever. Next year, as per the promo
video we saw, will be in St Gallen. The
lodging will be distributed across several hotels, and the sessions will be at the
university. The 2013 conference will be
at the Hyatt in Cambridge (Boston). This
will be our first conference under the new default location policy. The 2014 conference will be in Europe, but the
location has not yet been chosen. We have
not had many events from chapters, but we would be happy to support chapter
events.

VP of Member Services – Etienne Rouwette

Member Services also deals with SIGs.
Three main ongoing activities are: 1)
Planned to have a focus group meeting in the UK, but the target group wasn't
there, 2) Working with Martin, VP Chapters, to improve coordination, and 3) Trying to build a case repository to post
on Society website.

VP of Publications –George Richardson

The recently reconstituted Publications
Committee has three people with staggered 3 year terms: Andy Ford, Rogelio Oliva, and Etienne
Rouwette. The VP Publications and the
Committee work with the Executive Editor on journal issues. Current areas of
focus include increased attention to bibliometrics and impact factors; working
with Wiley on processes; putting in some effort to get proceedings cataloged
under Scopus. The main immediate responsibility
is to nominate a new editor, since we are heading towards the end of Brain's
period as editor. The current impact factor
is around 0.67; the 5-year impact factor about 1.5. It is useful to cite the SDR and even more
useful to publish in other journals. Alan said it is hard work to publish. David A. noted that it takes work to get
cited in other fields and listed examples in public policy. The work is worth doing.

Executive Director – Roberta Spencer

The full report is available on
line. Highlights include a new contract
w Albany and several web based initiatives. Membership is up a little. Sales
have reached a plateau. The bibliography
is available on the web site. Organizing
the conferences requires lots of work. The home office works on three conferences at any time.

Nominating Committee – Rogelio Oliva

As past president, Rogelio serves
as the chair of the Nominating Committee. They present a slate of candidates
for PC members and officers. We are always interested in people who want to
serve. Please let him know if you are
interested.

VP of Chapter Activities – Martin Schaffernicht

David Lane reported that lots of things have
been happening. Chapters are critical to
the vibrancy of the field. We need
chapters to complete their chapter reports. We now have a line item for a Chapter Development Fund, as a one-year
experiment, to provide funding to support chapter activities.

Kim mentioned that Martin has been asking
to find out state of the field of SD, e.g., how many people are doing SD; how
many courses are there; and so on. It is
really difficult to find out the true state of the field.

Some have said that the organization of chapters
vs. SIGs is a bit confusing. The
distinction is that most chapters are geographic. A Chapter has a constitution of its own. It
is a more formal structure; e.g., a chapter can raise money or charge
dues. A SIG cannot. In addition to the geographically organized
chapters, there are an Economics Chapter and a Student Chapter.

David
Lane announced the officers and PC Members who have been elected and will take
office in 2012. These people were nominated
by the nominating committee in the fall, approved by the Policy Council in the
winter meeting, announced to all Society members via newsletter, and become
nominees designate if no one petitions for an election. The new officers and PC members are:

President
Elect: Kim Warren

VP
Electronic Presence, Bob Eberlein (reappointment)

VP
Member Services, Etiënne Rouwette (reappointment)

VP
Publications, George P. Richardson (reappointment)

Policy
Council Members

Rod MacDonald

Silvia Ulli-Beer

Lees Stuntz

Nicole Zimmermann

David Lane introduced David Ford as the incoming president for 2012.

David Lane opened the floor for other business and general
questions, of which there were none.

Brad Morrison moved (Kim Warren seconded) that the meeting
be adjourned. Motion passed.